A billion new records for family history fans

SALT LAKE CITY — The Mormon church’s family history research center has signed a new agreement with Ancestry.com in a project to make 1 billion new genealogical records available to the public.

The Deseret News reports Family Search signed a five-year, $60 million deal with the Provo-based private company. Family Search is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ nonprofit organization dedicated to the research of family history.

The plan is for the two entities to work together to dig into the deep genealogical vaults of the Mormon church to digitize and index up to 1 billion new records that allow people around the world to research their family trees.

The two sides have worked together before, with millions of records already available to users on both ends.